


Sound of Silence

by EchoDance



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game), Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff I think, Gen, I'll add things as they come up, i don't know how to tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-01-16 05:02:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18514441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoDance/pseuds/EchoDance
Summary: Just something I decided to write because I can't find anything else for this.It's just Hollow Knight and Don't Starve, I also have no idea what to put here.





	1. The Ruins

Ghost was used to being alone, they had been for… a long time to say the least, and they had not seen another living creature since they had awoken. Yes there were shadows that appeared occasionally, but they were not living, they were not their Siblings. At least they never attacked.

When they first heard the sound of footsteps they were sort of excited, in a sense. And once they saw someone coming closer, they had already grabbed their nail and was rushing towards whoever it was.

Whoever it was let out a noise of alarm that made Ghost stop in their tracks, the other being had a torch that had fallen from their hand, they had also fallen onto their rear and was brandishing a shaky spear. They were not a bug, and that was odd to them, though this other being did have an interesting head.

After  a short while of neither party doing anything, the other being seemed to regain their confidence and put away the spear, then approached after picking the torch back up.

Ghost held still, not quite sure on what to do as the other being got close and crouched down to get a better look at them while murmuring softly. Ghost could understand what the other being was saying, but not actually, as the sound echoed into obscurity easily.

When the other being put their hand on Ghost’s head, they really didn’t know what to do.

It was a while before anyone moved aside from the head touch turning into petting. It felt a little nice if Ghost was being honest. And they leaned into the touch.

It occurred to them that the shadows were growing angry, and tugged at the other being. The other being seemed to recognize what was going to happen and stood back up and prepared to leave while looking back at Ghost.

Ghost was ready to follow, the other being seemed safe enough, and they reminded Ghost of Quirrel in a way.

When the other being started to walk, Ghost walked at a distance behind them. The other being looked at them occasionally, with what Ghost would say was probably curiosity.

When they came to a forest of mushrooms, Ghost felt strangely quelled as they moved through the tree-like mushrooms, it was an odd feeling, like there was something watching, just out of sight. Ghost was turning their head around, trying to find out what it was, sometimes they thought they saw something between the Mush trees, but when they looked a bit longer there was nothing there.

Ghost wanted to leave this Mycelium forest, it was weird and too red for their liking, and it was a relief to them when they saw different terrain, even if it was just Stalagmites.

There wasn’t much of interest around the Stalagmites, but the other being eventually came to a campsite area, there was a fire pit, and a few other things. After lighting the fire pit, the torch went out and the other being crouched in front of Ghost again.

Ghost could understand what the other being was saying now, the echoey effect of the previous area no longer in effect, but Ghost wasn’t really listening. They were focused on the touch that was being given to them again, the gentle petting was nice.

Eventually the petting stopped after the other being stopped talking, and while Ghost hadn’t been listening, they had taken in the fact that the other being was named Wilson and that he was a he.

After another while, Wilson got up and started walking again, this time with a lantern. Ghost followed, and observed that they seemed to be going up. It was a longer walk but they eventually got to where they were going, an exit to the caves. It was dusk, Wilson put the lantern outside the entrance and turned it off before continuing on his way.

During the walk to where they were going, Ghost was subtly observing the world around them, the trees were green but red and orange seemed to be at their edges, they didn’t like the orange parts.

The walk was shorter than the others, the destination was a clearing with a fire pit and a tent there were quiet sounds of someone sleeping in the tent. It was getting darker and Wilson lit the fire, and looked back at Ghost before entering the tent.

Ghost sat outside, they didn’t feel like they would be welcome in the tent, so they sat outside to wait out the night.


	2. Monster Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is mostly just area set up, and the introduction of my favorite Don't Starve character

It was a quiet night, the fire had gone out at some point, leaving Ghost in the dark, not that they minded, as they had been in the dark before Wilson found them.

When the sun began to rise they heard someone moving around in the tent and they looked at it. Someone they hadn’t met looked back at them after poking their head out. They looked more like a bug than Wilson.

The other person came out of the tent, they weren’t as tall as Wilson, about the same height as Ghost if you counted their horns.

“Hi, Who’re you?” The other person asked, Ghost couldn’t answer so they just looked at the other person, “We’re Webber, can you speak?” Ghost shook their head no.

Webber seemed to think about that for a bit, and asked another question.

“Is that yours?” while pointing at Ghost’s nail, they had put it by the fire pit before it had gone out in the night, Ghost nodded and Webber seemed satisfied by this.

As the sun rose higher in the sky, Webber continued to question Ghost with yes or no questions, eventually and after countless tries, Webber managed to guess Ghost’s name.

“Ghost is a nice name we think. I’m gonna go someplace, you can come if you want.” He offered, Ghost nodded and got their nail to follow.

Once they were away from the camp the two began to walk in the direction of the still rising sun, the trees changed from leafy ones to piney ones after a distance. There was a river they hopped across, it wasn’t a deep or quickly flowing river, it was just quicker to hop across.

They eventually came to the place Webber had wanted to go, a clearing in the piney trees where there was a different tree, it was much more gnarled and knotted than any of the other trees around, it was also much taller than the other trees. If you looked up you couldn’t see the top because it was so tall.

Webber looked back at Ghost before asking,

“Wanna see who can climb the highest?” and hurried to get a head start. It didn’t look too difficult to climb with all the bumps on it to grab, and Ghost ran over to start. By the time they caught up with Webber, he was perched on one of the branches that weren’t too high up, eating something, Ghost didn’t stop to see what it was.

The tree got more complicated to climb the higher you got, and Ghost had to stop when they couldn’t find a way past a whole ring of branches that blocked the way up, going back down to perch on a slightly lower branch to see what Webber would do.

When he came up however, he didn’t move past it either, just looked at it and went to the branch Ghost was perching on as well. “So you couldn’t get past it either? We got stuck there too.”, he said and started to descend the tree, Ghost followed after a short glance at the branches.

When they got to the base of the tree Webber looked at it before heading back towards the camp, but seemed to change his mind and started to go in another direction, Ghost followed.

On the way to where Webber was going they passed by a savannay place, a dense part of the forest that sounded vaguely like something sleeping, and a fluffy thing that ran away when they got near.

The place Webber had wanted to go was a rocky place with skittish lizardy things that had grass for tails, he seemed to enjoy chasing them around and trying to get them to drop their tails. Ghost joined in quickly, and tried to head off the lizard Webber was running after.

The lizard, after seeing this, decided to climb over a rock it was going to be cornered behind. Ghost and Webber followed shortly after, there were many geckos on the other side of the rock.

Ghost remained on the rock while Webber dashed off to chase the reptiles, Ghost was waiting for Webber to get one close before they pounced down and grabbed it by the tail. The lizard dropped it of course, but they had gotten the tail.

Ghost and Webber spent the rest of the day catching grass tails, and by the time they were going back to the camp, the rocky area had the sort of look that if you squinted you would probably think that there was actual grass growing out of the ground.

It was sunset when they got back, Wilson wasn’t there but Webber didn’t seem to mind that and started doing something, Ghost sat by the empty fire pit and watched. He was using some of the grass they had gotten from the lizards, they had left a lot on the ground but Webber had taken some with him, and was trying to braid it into rope from what Ghost could tell.

Webber had gotten a few done before Wilson got back, he muttered a quiet thanks to Webber before lighting the fire pit and sitting down to help with the ropes.

The sun set completely after a while and the others worked by the light of the fire, they were talking but Ghost wasn’t listening to them, they only started to pay attention when Webber mentioned their name. It sounded like the others were talking about them, but they stopped paying attention quickly.

The others stopped working on the ropes sometime later and Wilson went into the tent, though Webber stayed out longer and sat with Ghost a bit. Though he went in the tent as well. Ghost sat outside, they didn’t mind, they wanted to keep watch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, I am a big dumb who can't really write constantly and I'm sorry. I also hate writing people talking and just wanted to experiment a bit, I'm sorry again. I'm not sure when I'll get to writing the third Chapter because I have little to no idea where to go from here. If anyone has suggestions or something I'll be grateful to hear them, please.


	3. Fishing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This took too long to write for how short it is and I'm sorry.

Ghost had fallen asleep sometime in the night, and they woke up when the sun began to rise. They just sat for a bit, waiting for something to happen or someone to exit the tent.

The second happened first, with Webber coming out to check on them. “How was it last night? We think it would be lonely staying out all night.” They weren’t sure how it was, since they were asleep the whole time.

After a small bit of staring at nothing in particular, Ghost realised that the others were getting ready to go somewhere and got up to follow them. They followed and they got to the river quickly, the others set up some things, though Ghost didn’t know what some of them were for.

They watched Webber from a rock in the river that they were sitting on, it looked like he was trying to fish, but he wasn’t having the best of luck. Ghost decided that they wanted to try it, but they didn’t have a fishing pole. They contemplated what to do for a while before they noticed that there was a fish in the shadow of the rock they were on and swung their nail at it.

There was a splash but they didn’t get the fish, in fact they just scared it away, as well as a few other fish. They stared blankly at the water after that, waiting for another to appear, which it soon did.

Slower this time, they raised their nail over the fish and swung it again. The fish fled again, though Ghost was sure that they should have gotten it, perhaps they should have waited more, though they weren’t sure.

They waited again and another fish soon came to rest by the rock, and Ghost raised their nail again, slowly moving it over the fish before stabbing down. Third time was the charm, and they drew their nail up with a skewered fish.

They looked over at Webber and it looked like he had given up with the fishing pole and was trying to catch some fish with his claws, not that he was very successful, they were just too fast for his claws to grab. Ghost watched with vague amusement at the sight, Wilson was just waiting patiently with his fishing rod, looking like he’d seen this many times before.

It went on for a while, Ghost was content with just one fish and watching Webber get increasingly frustrated over not being able to catch fish with his bare claws. When it was getting late, Wilson had caught a fair amount of fish, and Webber had caught just one.

They began to head back when the sun started to set, it wasn’t a long walk. And they got back fairly quick, with Webber looking at Ghost’s nail because they hadn’t taken the fish off of it yet. When he’d first seen that they had caught a fish by stabbing it, he’d been intrigued, or at least, he’d made a face that Ghost didn’t quite get.

After getting back the others cooked a few of the fish to eat, and put the rest in an icebox, Ghost was told that it was for later by Wilson. The rest of the evening was spent by Webber talking at Ghost, they listened patiently to some of the things he was saying, he was mostly talking about some of the things that lived where they found themselves.

“There’s some really tall birds over by the rocks we were at two days ago, they probably took some of the grass we left behind to make some nests. We’re going to take a look tomorrow. They’re mean but only if you get too close.” That sounded like an interesting thing to do, they might tag along.

Webber soon went into the tent after a quick good night to Ghost, and they sat up to wait through the night, it would probably be a quiet night again, but they just wanted to make sure, maybe tomorrow they would go with Webber to the tent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My tumblr is EchoDance if anyone wants to go over there to yell at me, please do I'm very lonely. It might also give me motivation.


	4. The Birds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter Ghost does not like tallbirds. Also I have no idea why i was able to write this much this quickly, I have nothing to say for myself on why it took so long last time, I hope you readers don't mind longer chapters.

It was indeed a quiet night, though Ghost thought that it was slightly colder than last night. And as they waited for someone to leave the tent they decided on something to do, grabbing their nail by the pit before walking towards one of the trees around the camp and climbing up it to perch on one of the branches.

Ghost thought that they would look a bit like Hornet if they could see themselves, shorter yes, but still like their sister in some way. They waited up there, startling a few birds that had decided to land on that branch when they moved occasionally, they were waiting for Webber. Soon enough he peeked out of the tent, Ghost saw him look around presumably for them.

They underestimated Webbers’ eyesight.

“We can see you, your head doesn’t make hiding in trees a good choice in my opinion.” Ghost supposed that they were easier to spot with 8 eyes, but they didn’t have 8 eyes so they wouldn’t know. They hopped down from the tree as he left the tent, and came over to the fire pit to watch as Webber got ready. It was quick, mostly him getting a backpack from the ground and picking out some things to take with him.

Ghost followed as Webber started towards to rocky place, they noticed Wilson leaving the tent soon after, but hurried along to keep up with Webber, he was going at a quick pace. They slowed down after reaching the tallest tree that Ghost knew about, if only for Webber to look up at it and try and see the top, when they continued it was at a slower pace, but still making good time.

It was still early morning when they got to the rocks, the ground was still covered in the grassy tails of lizards, with the owners of the tails looking at the two, probably remembering what had happened, but Webber passed the lizards with only a small chase, he was heading more into the rocky terrain.

It was easy to spot the birds from a distance, when they got closer Ghost took a look from the distance, and didn’t find them the most appealing creature they’d seen, what with that eye taking up most of the birds heads, they didn’t even know how the birds stood with those flimsy looking legs.

They knew the birds were staring at them, it would be hard not to be aware of it, or for the bird to not see them. Ghost would have just left, but Webber was good company and they’d stay for his sake because they did not trust those birds one bit.

They doubted Webber’s judgement when he decided to go closer to the birds, hopping onto a rock to jump onto another, closer to the birds. Ghost followed, making extra sure that they had their nail with them, to stab at the birds knees if necessary.

They knew their nail wasn’t as strong as it could be, but they were skilled with it, maybe not the best but they were still good with it. They knew that they were dangerous, they had taken down powerful foes, they could handle a few birds that looked weird to them.

Ghost watched as Webber got closer to the birds, and they followed close behind him, the birds looking more and more threatening to Ghost as they got closer, but Webber continued forward. Ghost didn’t know what Webber was doing, but they couldn’t ask him what he was doing, though they really wanted to.

They watched Webber hop off of the last rock he had jumped to, he was being watched by all the birds, Ghost really wanted to know what he thought he was doing, there were at least ten birds that Ghost could see, possibly more that they couldn’t.

Ghost followed Webber as he got closer to them, Ghost could see the nests of the birds now, some of them had an egg, others had small birds that just looked like very short versions of the big ones.

They watched as one of the birds was paying particularly close attention to Webber, before making a noise that Ghost wasn’t too sure about and walking towards him, the walking could have counted as running for how long the birds’ legs were. Ghost did not trust the bird and dashed closer to Webber.

They were both now close to the nest and Ghost could practically feel the agitation of the other birds, they saw Webber snatch an egg from the nest for whatever reason and start running from the bird, which had let out another noise. Ghost slashed at the bird’s legs once before following Webber to wherever he was going, and hopefully get an answer for why Webber did that.

He stopped running around where the lizards were, he set the egg down in one of the tails before setting the backpack down to put the egg in that. Ghost tapped his shoulder to get his attention and hopefully an answer.

“What?” He asked after the tap, and Ghost pointed at the egg. “Oh do you want to know why we got this?”And they nodded and waited for an answer because they needed one right now.

“We got it because… I’m not sure actually, they’re good to eat though so maybe we’ll take that as a reason.” That was it? That was the reason. Ghost felt that was a stupid reason, and they started to walk back to the camp, it was still early so they might do some exploring later, to not think about the stupid reason why Webber brought Ghost to the birds, they thought it would be intersting. No, the birds were creepy and Ghost didn’t like them and they weren’t trying to hear Webber calling to tell them to wait but they did hear him anyways.

“Ghost please wait! We’re sorry for our bad answer! Please wait!” They just kept walking towards the camp, trying to ignore Webber’s hurried footsteps, he must have been slowed down by the egg in his backpack, because he was at least as fast as their fast walk from what they could tell.

They slowed down and looked back after reaching the tallest tree, Webber wasn’t fast to catch up but he did after a while. Ghost was only walking back to the camp to provide themselves a rest before wandering off, as well as a place to return to when they got tired of wandering, you could say that they were still miffed about Webber’s answer.

They sat at the empty fire pit to rest and certainly weren’t thinking that they would have done the same thing Webber if they didn’t mind the birds so much, absolutely not thinking that to themself at all.

They got up quietly when Webber wasn’t looking, and started going in a direction they hadn’t gone before. They walked for a bit through the forest before there was new terrain, it looked sandy and felt sandy under their feet, there was cati as they saw, and what looked like goats, but they only paused for a moment before continuing on their way.

They only walked through the desert for a short while before finding something that caught their attention, a large silken structure on some greenish grass, there were flowers speckling the ground, Ghost found this place a bit calming and decided to sit until they calmed down about Webber’s reason for taking the bird egg.

They sat until the sun began to set, and something was emerging from the silken structure, it looked a bit like Webber, so they decided to leave it alone, as it wasn’t actually bothering them.

They realized a bit too late that they wouldn’t be able to get back to the camp before night, but might as well make an effort, they were calmer about the bird egg after rationalizing it in their mind that yes, they would have done the same if they didn’t mind the birds so much.

They got up to start the walk back, startling the spider a bit as they hadn’t moved before, but they left the spider behind to walk back in the direction they came from. Mostly following their footprints in the desert part.

It got dark before they realized it would, though they were close enough to faintly see firelight of the camp, and walked towards it. When they got there they saw a lonely looking Webber. Admittedly the sight made them feel a bit bad for wandering off.

When they got close enough to be seen from the campfire Webber perked up and ran over, and hugged them, Ghost didn’t really know how to feel about this but decided that it was fine when they heard him apologizing quietly. Just repeating “We’re sorry.” Over and over again, making Ghost feel bad some more.

After a long bit of hugging that was reciprocated halfway through, they were both sat by the fire pit, Webber hadn’t let go entirely yet, he was holding their hand with his own clawed one. Ghost hadn’t realized exactly how fluffy he was before, he wasn’t soft exactly but he was fluffy.

It didn’t take Ghost long to hear Webber speaking.

“I thought we would be alone tonight, Mr.Wilson hasn’t come back from the caves and he’s probably spending the night there, and then you left. We’re sorry.” Ghost wanted it to be known that it wasn’t his fault, he didn’t need to apologize, but they couldn’t, so they hugged him again, just burying their mask in his shoulder fluff. It seemed to calm him down a bit.

It was later when Webber went into the tent, with Ghost following him, there were bedrolls on the ground of the tent as well as a divide on Wilson and Webber’s areas in the tent, Webber wrapped himself up in one of the bedrolls in his area to sleep, Ghost just flopped down on one.

It was quiet, except for Webber’s slowing breathing, Ghost though that they would sleep tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluffy spider boy is good boy.


	5. Exploring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this is getting worse and worse but here we go.  
> These kids go on an adventure then go back, that's the chapter, oh and it rains a bit as well.

Ghost did sleep that night, it was a more consistent warmth that sitting out by the fire, and comforting in their opinion. Webber had at some point gotten unwrapped from his bedroll, and was sprawled underneath it.

Ghost didn’t want to wake him up, he looked like he was comfortable, but Ghost wanted to explore and felt it wouldn’t be a nice thing to do after seeing his reaction the first time they left with him having no idea where they went. They sat in the tent while waiting, watching it get brighter outside through the fabric of the tent.

Eventually, right before Ghost would have lost patience and just gone outside, one of Webbers’ eyes blinked open before closing and he did a full body stretch kind of thing. Ghost waited until they knew he was aware of their location until they left the tent.

They saw that it was cloudy today after they left the tent, colder also, as well as the trees being noticeably warmer colored. Ghost watched the trees somewhat suspiciously, especially the ones with more orange on them than the others, they didn’t trust the color orange, not after what they knew.

Webber came out of the tent shortly, seeing them looking at the trees.

“Summer’s almost over, so now it’s almost autumn, Mr Wilson calls it fall though. We like autumn, it’s when the leaves fall and are fun to play in.” He said, that didn’t make them trust the orange leaves at all but they wouldn’t just attack them if he said they were fine.

Ghost didn’t want to spend much more time in the presence of the orange trees, and they got one of Webber’s hands in their own, holding it. Webber looked to be trying not to smile when Ghost started to walk with his hand in theirs, he walked with them, following them while they led him to where they wanted to go, which was across the desert.

Webber paused in his following when they came across the goats, but only for a moment to look. Ghost stopped at the silken structure, waiting for Webber to say something that might explain to them, and he seemed to realize their curiosity.

“That’s a spider den, there are others close by the camp, the one closer are bigger and have more spiders that live there, this one is probably newer.” Ghost listened to him, and wondered how he knew, though they could probably guess that he was a spider, and that was how he knew.

They were thinking about that when it started to rain, they noticed when a raindrop hit one of their horns, making them look up, and get a raindrop nearly in one of their eyes, it was a warm sort of rain, not like the city of tears, they didn’t mind it, it was actually kind of nice.

Webber seemed to enjoy the rain as well, letting go of Ghost’s hand to chase raindrops and sticking out his tongue to catch them. He looked like he was having a good time, Ghost had decided to sit while enjoying the rain, they enjoyed the rain quietly, as they always did.

They watched Webber run around in the rain, they were amused when he slipped on the grass, which was becoming slicker by the second, he got up soon enough and walked quickly over to Ghost to touch their mask with his sopping hand, not that they really minded, their mask was just as wet as his hand from the rain. Webber sat beside them at their reaction, they could feel through their cloak how soaked he was from just running around and slipping onto the grass.

The sitting had turned into Webber holding Ghost’s hand, he was seemingly calmed by their eternal stoicism and was only occasionally swatting at raindrops with his free hand. They sat like that together until they heard thunder, at which point both of them decided to go under a tree for shelter, it wouldn’t shelter them entirely from the rain but it would hopefully protect them from any lightning.

The rain ended soon though, and they could come out from under the tree, it was still cloudy though and looked like it could start raining again at any moment but neither of the two friends were deterred, and Webber began to lead the way while they were exploring, he was talking a bit.

“Mr Wilson doesn’t like the rain much, we asked him why and he just told us that it was for reasons, he doesn’t like a lot of things, and he always complains whenever something he doesn’t like happens, loudly. We don’t want to be like him when we’re bigger, so I try to think about the things I like about things he doesn’t whenever Mr Wilson is complaining about them.” Ghost though that Wilson must be an unpleasant person to be around if he always complained about everything he disliked, maybe it was a good thing that they hadn’t seen too much of him.

Webber didn’t seem to dwell on that topic for too long and he started talking about something else, something to do with why he liked the rain, but Ghost was distracted by something, a new area with spiky looking trees and reeds, they stopped to look at it, Webber was unprepared for them to stop walking and tugged them a bit when he moved forward though he stopped moving to look at what had intrigued them.

He looked at the swamp and made a face.

“That place smells horrible, we can smell it from here.” Did it? Ghost couldn’t tell, but they didn’t have a sense of smell, others had told them that.

Webber didn’t seem to want to venture over there, and Ghost could almost tell that it was getting darker, they didn’t want to keep Webber far away from the camp when it got dark, and so they started to walk back towards the camp. Webber followed while holding hands, he seemed eager to not explore the swamp.

They found their way back and passed through the desert again, the goats were starting to fall asleep now, though the ones awake stared at them, Ghost didn’t like it but they didn’t know how Webber felt about it and he seemed to like the goats.

Ghost saw that the fire pit was lit when they got close, and Webber let go of their hand when he saw as well, he seemed cautious for a moment before he saw that it was Wilson, who had finally come back after like a day.

“Sometimes he’s gone for longer, this was one of his shorter trips, but he’ll probably go back tomorrow once he’s gotten some supplies for his next venture down.” Webber told Ghost as they approached. Wilson didn’t seem aware that they had arrived, he looked to be making tools for his next time going back down to the caves, as Webber had said.

He was grumbling his complaints about Fall, like that he didn’t like how cold it was going to get. Webber tried to say hi but either Wilson was ignoring him or just didn’t hear him, because he didn’t respond. Ghost began walking around the camp, weaving themselves between the chests and icebox, there was a spare backpack on the ground that was probably Wilson’s, Webber had set his down in his area of the tent.

It was a while before the sun set completely, Ghost and Webber had been playing small games quietly, and Wilson hadn’t ever looked up, still muttering about how he didn’t like Fall and everything he didn’t like about Fall. Ghost and Webber slinked into the tent to avoid bothering him.

Webber wasted no time in making himself comfortable, but after Ghost found a spot they liked, Webber made his way closer before wrapping himself. Ghost hadn’t realised that his fur was still slightly damp before now, his fur was sticking out and fluffed up slightly, it felt slightly cold and bristly against their mask.

At least he’d be dry by morning, and probably warmer, and maybe fluffier also.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll probably start updating on Wednesdays if I have a chapter done at the Wednesday in particular, no promises on a consistent schedule though.


	6. Spiders and Hounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's pretty much just fluffrey, also Wilson's gone, again.

Ghost could tell when they woke up that Wilson hadn’t been there, and they wondered if he had slept at all last night. They were only aware of Webber when he made a noise at their movement, he was drier than last night, though still kinda bristly.

Ghost was able to get up, but they saw one of his hands fish around for them before he gave up and opened his eyes, watching Ghost leave the tent. It wasn’t as cold as yesterday, and it wasn’t cloudy, those things were probably connected.

It was only a short wait until Webber left the tent as well, he shook his head in what they assumed was an attempt to tame his floof, that only succeeded in making it poof up. Ghost would have laughed if they could, he looked a little ridiculous with his head fur making his head look like a black cotton ball, and they thought he could tell, what with him clawing at it in an almost annoyed way.

Ghost couldn’t help themself and tried to pet his head fluff, it was so soft, but they could tell he was somewhat annoyed, given by how he pushed their hand away with one of the legs on his head.

Eventually Webber gave up trying to make his fur lie flat, it was a lost cause anyways, it was just too poofy. He seemed to find a reason to smile about it after thinking for a moment.

“We look silly don’t we? We can tell.” He was smiling as he said it, and then paused to think again, “What should we do today then? There are rabbits that we could hunt, then we could show you the closer den.” That sounded like a nice plan, so Ghost quietly nodded.

Webber seemed to be excited that they agreed to his first plan. “We’ll show you the place where there are lots of rabbits, after we get something to hit them with first.” He began scrounging around some of the chests, they seemed disorganised given by how he didn’t seem to know where what he was looking for was. Then again Ghost couldn’t say that they were exactly organized, but at least they knew the general location of the items in their hoard back home.

Now that they thought about it, it wasn’t that smart of them to have left so many of their things back there, like their dream nail and their charms. Why did they leave those things in their hoard? They didn’t know but it was really dumb of them, but then again they weren’t exactly the smartest out of their siblings, not even close.

So they waited patiently until Webber found what he was looking for, a spear, and followed him when he held one of their hands in his to lead them to where they were going. 

It was to the savannay place as they soon found out, and there were indeed lots of rabbits there. Ghost tried to swipe at one that was close with their nail, they missed because the creature was both too far away, and quick.

Webber ran towards the largest herd, causing them to disperse, rushing a few of them towards Ghost who then swung their nail, but still missed because the rabbits saw them ahead and turned away.

They decided to chase the rabbit, which didn’t go well because it just went down into its warren which had an opening too small for Ghost to follow. They sat by the opening while waiting for the small creature to leave, it did eventually and was slashed. They used this tactic for a few more rabbits before they got bored and started to wait by where they started.

Webber followed soon after, he had a few rabbits he was holding.

“We’ll show you the den now, we wanted to get some food for them first.” So that was the reason for the rabbit hunting? All right. Ghost followed Webber as he led the way to the den.

It was in fact bigger than the other, about twice as big if Ghost had to say. It was in a darker part of the forest, a more quiet part of the forest. There was webbing on the ground that clung at Ghost’s feet, slowing them down, Webber didn’t seem to have the same problem, he walked over it with ease.

Ghost tried to follow Webber as he walked right up to the den, but they were slowed. When they caught up he was tapping on the outside of the den until a spider emerged, he offered it the rabbit to take, which it did, taking it back into the den. A few more spiders followed the first, and Webber gave them rabbits.

After a few spiders had brought rabbits the whole den was out, they were fed so they didn’t bother Ghost for any of the rabbits they had, but a few did come over to investigate. Webber had one in his hands and came over to Ghost to show them, they looked at the spider and the spider looked at them, they were fine with spiders.

They stood still on the webbing, watching Webber as he walked around the webbing, the spiders followed him around as Ghost saw. They would have kept watching if they didn’t hear something odd, it sounded like barking in the distance. Webber seemed to hear it too, he put down the spider he was holding to take out his spear.

Ghost was wondering why before they heard the barking getting closer and then saw the hounds, they slashed their nail at one that came running at them, and saw the spiders were helping by biting at the hounds.

The red ones caught fire when they died as Ghost soon found out, and they dashed away to avoid catching fire themselves. Eventually all the hounds had died with only a few spiders joining them, the one that Webber had held stayed out a bit before returning to the den with the others. Webber came over to Ghost to hold their hand and talk to them.

“The hounds come at certain times, we’ve memorized when the hounds come and see go to the den when they come, the spiders understand and help. We’ve been giving them food for their help.” Ghost just looked at Webber, they didn’t need an explanation, but they’d gotten one.

The spider that Webber had been holding came back out soon, and sat by his leg, it appeared to be the most affectionate of the spiders in the den. Ghost saw Webber reach down to pet it with his other hand.

It was a good rest of the day in Ghost’s opinion, with Webber talking to them about his spider friends to them while wandering around, the spider following them. They started back to camp when the sun started to set, it wasn’t that far, and Wilson wasn’t there, as per usual from what Ghost could tell.

They sat by the empty fire pit, the following spider seemed to have stopped before they got to the camp, it might have gone back to its den. Webber didn’t seem to care anyhow, he was sorting some of the things he’d grabbed on the way back to camp before going over to the chests and putting in some things and taking out others.

Ghost watched as he organized the chests, it was a quick thing once he got started, though the ground got a bit cluttered at one point, once he was done he came back over with some grass to braid into rope, which he began after lighting the fire pit.

Ghost wasn’t sure about what to do with the rabbits they still had, so they just set them on the ground, and returned to watching Webber. He noticed the rabbits after looking up at them.

“If you need something to do with those just put them in the ice box, we can eat them tomorrow.” They nodded before doing that and sitting closer to him, though not in the grass pile he had built up, it was a large pile.

Ghost watched him braid the grass curiously, maybe they could try it as well, but right now they didn’t know where to start. But they thought it would be better to just start and learn as they went, like they did with most everything else. And almost immediately they just ended up tangling the grass, it was durable grass, it didn’t just break when they pulled at it to try and untangle the knot they’d made of it.

They continued to silently struggle with the grass tangle until Webber looked up and saw their dilemma, coming over to help them. He didn’t seem to know how they managed to tangle it but he didn’t have much difficulty in severing the tangle from the rest of the grass with his claws.

Webber decided to show them how to properly braid rope, and they did that until Webber was tired. Most of Webber’s ropes were better than Ghost’s but that was fine, it was still rope, Webber had said while they were making it that Wilson had taken all the rope and that was why they were making more.

All the grass had been used up by the time Webber got up to go to put the rope where it belonged in the chests, Ghost went into the tent on their own, to find a place to lie. Webber joined them shortly, wrapping himself while leaving one of his arms out to hold one of their hands as he fell asleep. As Ghost fell asleep, they wondered what would happen tomorrow, they wondered why Wilson spent so much time in the caves, though that probably wouldn’t get answered. They fell asleep wondering about questions that wouldn’t get answered until it was tomorrow, maybe later than that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone's wondering about why I included Wilson when he's hardly present, you'll see sometime later, a later I hope to be far far away right now.


	7. Falling Leaves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ghost doesn't like orange leaves, Webber just wants to play in the leaves

Ghost woke up with Webber’s hand still holding theirs, his hand was soft. They just layed there for a while, it was warm and felt safe, they decided to lay there until Webber woke up. They almost fell back asleep while waiting, at least until a breeze blew the tent flap open, leaving the inside colder and Ghost wide awake.

The breeze appeared to be enough to wake up Webber, as he opened one of his eyes and yawned before opening all of his eyes and blinking at Ghost.

“Good morning.” He said sleepy, it was slightly muffled because he had one of the bedrolls still covering a bit of his face. He watched as they left the tent to take a look outside. They were almost hit in the head by a leaf blowing in the wind, an orange one, they slashed their nail at the leaf, slicing it in two.

They looked to the trees to see that the leaves were falling, they slashed at any orange ones that came close to them, Ghost didn’t trust them, no matter what Webber said, they refused to trust the color orange. The red ones were fine, they didn’t mind red.

It went on for a while of them standing still while staring at the trees and leaves, they were interrupted by Webber tapping them on the shoulder, they moved more out of the tent.

Unlike them, Webber seemed to like the leaves when he saw them, he grabbed at one that got close and began to chase after a few. Ghost just stayed still, they weren’t sure what to do so they just went back into the tent to sit for a bit. Webber peeked his head back in to check on them after noticing that they’d gone back in, he looked a little confused.

“Why’d you come back here?” He asked, “It’s just leaves. Is it the color of them that bothers you?” Ghost nodded, they weren’t sure how he’d guessed, but he was right. Webber seemed to think about that for a while before leaving and returning with two leaves, one was red, the other an orangy yellow.

“Can you show us which one?” He held out the leaves and Ghost lashed one of their hands at the orange one, making small rips in it. Webber looked at the orange one before nodding and leaving the tent again.

He was gone for a while, and Ghost got tired of sitting in the tent, they peeked out of the tent and saw that most of the orange leaves were gone, the ones remaining were on the outer end of the fire pit, which was lit. They figured out what was going on quickly enough when Webber came by with a few orange leaves in his hands and threw them into the fire.

It was a foolish task, they had no idea how many orange leaves there were, it would be impossible to know, and yet Ghost found Webber’s attempt endearing. They walked over to him as he was throwing the leaves he had into the burning fire, which seemed to leap up as it got more food. They grabbed one of his hands to catch his attention, they thought it was a nice gesture, but they were fine now, they’d deal with their hatred of the color orange on their own, he didn’t need to waste his time.

Webber looked at them with his head tilted slightly, like he didn’t get what they were trying to say, and it was probably the case, it wouldn’t be easy to communicate what they wanted to, but they wanted to try.

It took a while of charades and guessing on Webber’s part, but it was eventually made somewhat clear what they wanted to say, and in that time, the ground was scattered with both red and orange leaves. Ghost tried to ignore how much they wanted to just throw them into the fire like Webber had been doing, but then they would be a hypocrite, instead they stepped on one, they didn’t expect the crunch of the leaf and set their foot back where it was before stepping on the leaf.

Webber smiled a bit before speaking.

“Autumn leaves crunch when you step on them, we like to make piles of them to jump in, and listen to the sound.” Ghost thought about that as they stepped on another leaf, listening to the crackle of it, they had only been startled because they didn’t expect it, but now that they did it was fine. They decided to hop onto a pile that had gotten caught on some of the shorter grass and scattered the leaves.

When they looked back over at Webber he was gathering leaves together, probably to make a very large pile somewhere, jumping on the leaves was a fun thing to do, so Ghost decided to help.

They were swift in their gathering of leaves, they weren’t holding any but they weren’t on the ground, Webber looked confused when he looked over.

“Ghost, where are the leaves? We know you were getting leaves but, where’d they go?” Ghost wasn’t sure how they’d explain, so they decided to show him when he decided to make the pile for the leaves. Right now they were just looking at him while making no attempt to communicate.

“All right then keep your secrets. We’ll start piling the leaves here.” Ghost waited for him to show the spot for the leaf pile, and walked over. In the next second all the leaves they’d gathered were in the pile and Webber just looked more confused. “Where? We know you probably won’t be able to answer but we’re just confused where the leaves were.”

They indeed wouldn’t be able to answer, so they didn’t even try and Webber only looked at them for a moment of waiting before leaping into the leaf pile, scattering the leaves.

The two of them played with the leaves for the rest of the day, not much was done aside from the play, and the two didn’t leave the camp, retiring to the tent before sundown, to Ghost, it was a great day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it's been about a month, I'm very sorry.


	8. Full Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The full moon is bright and leads to thinking thoughts.

Ghost would have slept that night if it wasn’t so bright. Ghost wasn’t sure how Webber could sleep through it, they certainly couldn’t, and with a small stretch after detangling themself from Webber’s arms, they went outside to look.

Everything was sort of covered in a sort of blue-ish light, when they looked up, they saw that the moon was full. It was a quiet sort of night, the only noise that Ghost could hear was Webber quietly breathing. It was peaceful and that kind of peace led to absentminded wondering.

They wondered how they’d gotten here, they knew the last place in Hallownest they’d been was the abyss, but how they’d gotten to… wherever this place was was a mystery to them.

They wondered how Hollow was doing, they didn’t do much on their own as Ghost had noticed. They loved their sibling very much, but they were just so lethargic normally. Ghost hoped Quirrel was taking them out with him when he went down into Hallownest on occasion, at least just to give them something to do.

Speaking of Quirrel they wondered what he was doing, he tried to explain to them what he was doing when they tagged along with him but they’d forgotten. They’d been worried at first before they’d slain the Radiance and found him at Dirtmouth, he was going to leave but Ghosts’ plain joy at seeing him had him stay.

Thinking about Quirrel made them think about Myla, and how happy they were that she was alive. They’d almost lost hope for her when she’d stopped humming, at first Ghost was curious why, only to get a nasty surprise when they saw her eyes. They’d visited her alcove first as soon as they could after they’d freed their sibling, and had a very big scare after seeing her on the ground and not moving.

She was fine, just passed out, she’d woken up when Ghost touched her face. They’d spent several minutes just crying from relief much to Myla’s confusion, she’d been almost unaware of her predicament of being infected.

If only their other infected sibling had the same fate… that dampened Ghost’s mood, thinking about their broken sibling, they didn’t even have a name from what Ghost knew.

They were disturbed from their wonderings by the sound of Webber leaving the tent, it seemed he couldn’t sleep for long with how bright the moon was as well. He sat down beside them but didn’t say anything for now, so they sat in silence under the full moon’s light.

It was quiet enough for Ghost to continue wondering about things. This time about the people they didn’t have the best opinions of.

They wondered what he was doing in the caves aside from being completely antisocial. They wondered why he was so antisocial, though they were chalking it up for now as him being a bit like Zote minus rambling about himself to anyone who will listen, and even those who don’t want to.

Zote, Ghost regretted not leaving him for dead when they could have. They were sure Bretta would have been happier without the self righteous… idiot, they could think of a stronger word but they didn’t feel fine even thinking about it around Webber. Hollow was best at ignoring him insulting them, Hornet threatened to hang him back up in deepnest if he didn’t shut up, and he ignored Ghost for the most part, unless he was insulting them.

Back on a positive note Hornet, they wondered how she was doing, probably fine. They worried for her sometimes, but only because she didn’t have many friends, the only person she really talked to often, aside from themself and Hollow, was Quirrel, who she pretended to hate. At least for the first few weeks.

Ghost had no idea what they talked about because they stopped whenever they got close enough to hear them. To be fair they stopped whenever anyone got near, well, Hornet stopped, Quirrel was prone to carry on until he noticed her looking away.

Quirrel told them other things anyways, like the history of something or someplace, when they tagged along with him, those were the only parts of his explanations they didn’t forget.

They were distracted from their wondering once again by Webber talking.

“I don’t like the full moon, it’s too bright for sleep most of the time. We only fell asleep because you were there actually.” He said, making Ghost tilt their head a little. They were curious why, and their tilted head prompted him to elaborate.

“We weren’t alone this time, I don’t know why but it’s easier for us to sleep when we’re not alone.” That… didn’t make much sense to Ghost but it didn’t seem to make much sense to Webber either. In all honesty he looked like he just wanted to go back to sleep. Ghost didn’t blame him, they didn’t like being woken up when they weren’t ready.

They hadn’t noticed that he was holding their hand until they tried to shift closer to him. They wriggled their hand out of his, but only because they wanted to get closer and it would have been uncomfortable.

It was cold out, and Webber deserved to sleep. There was some motivation however in that Webbers’ fur had gotten really soft and nice and they wanted to feel it.

They didn’t realize when he’d fallen asleep, because they’d fallen asleep before him. The full moon not keeping them awake any longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end bit was a struggle for me to write because I kept feeling like I should make it longer but I couldn't think of anything else. Also platonic snuggles are the shit for my poor touch starved heart.


End file.
